2 July, 2015 – In 2015 we celebrate the 750th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s birth, an important anniversary that anticipates the celebrations for 2021, when Italy will celebrate 700 years since the disappearence of the father of the Italian language. The Institute Italian Cultural Institute in Buenos Aires has dedicated a special appointment to the author of the Divine Comedy. “Dante, Ulysses and the new world” is a conference – organized in collaboration with the Gobierno de la Ciudad de Aires – in program at the Institute on July 7 (6.30pm) and starring his philologist, writer and literary critic Piero Boitani. Medievalist, Dante scholar, scholar of myth and modern literature, Boitani in his capacity as a distinguished Dante scholar, will speak of the myth of Odysseus described in Dante’s Inferno and how it had influenced the great explorers who first traveled to the New World. Boitani teaches Comparative Literature at the University of Rome La Sapienza. His main works are “Sulle orme di Ulisse” (2007), “Letteratura europea e Medioevo volgare” (2007) and “Il Vangelo secondo Shakespeare” (2009).
